1. Field of Invention
The present invention generally relates to flash storage, and more particularly to a flash storage system and method for accessing a boot program of a computing system.
2. Description of Related Art
A typical computing system executes a boot program upon the occurrence of a system reset to initialize various devices in the computing system, such as hard drives, floppy drives, and compact disc (CD) drives. Such a boot program is sometimes referred to as a basis input/output system (BIOS). In addition to initializing the various devices in the computing system, the boot program may also perform diagnostic self-tests on the devices to determine whether the devices are operating properly. The computing system then loads one or more software programs, such as an operating system, from the storage devices into a main memory of the computing system and executes the software programs to control operation of the computing system.
In many computing systems, the boot program is stored in a nonvolatile memory, such as a read-only-memory (ROM), an erasable read-only-memory (EPROM), or an electrically erasable read-only-memory (EEPROM). Because the memory access time of the non-volatile is relatively slow, some computing system load the boot program from the nonvolatile memory into a main memory having a faster memory access time. The computing system then executes the boot program from the main memory. Loading the boot program from the nonvolatile memory into the main memory, however, consumes processing time and resources in the computing system. Moreover, the boot program consumes memory locations in the main memory, which would otherwise be available for software programs.
In light of the above, a need exists for an improved system and method for accessing a boot program.